President Obama’s Weakness as an Alpha Person Was on Display in the Ambassador Susan Rice Fiasco — and an Equally Revealing Ding in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Reputation

© 2012 Peter Free

 

14 December 2012

 

 

Susan Rice withdrew her name for consideration as the next Secretary of State yesterday — in an astonishing revelation of President Obama’s lack of Alpha Person character

 

Ambassador Rice’s withdrawal from consideration for Secretary of State presumably ended an episode that:

 

exposed President Obama’s ineptitude as an Alpha Person,

 

and

 

similarly revealed a disturbing chink in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s character.

 

All it took to accomplish this toilet-seeking coup was brainless and bigoted behavior initiated by Republican Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte — later joined by Senators Susan Collins and Bob Corker.

 

Note — for a succinct overview, see

 

Romesh Ratnesar, Susan Rice and the Myth of Statesmanship, Bloomberg Businessweek (14 December 2012)

 

Everyone involved in this affair, except Ambassador Rice, looks like distilled “Essence of Scum.”

 

 

It is impossible to lead in difficult times, without displaying political courage — and President Obama seems to lack a strategic sense of how to display it

 

What happened to Ambassador Rice serves as a window into the President’s seeming ineptitude when it comes to actually knowing how to be an Alpha Person.

 

 

The Obama Bus — runs over his loyal supporters, whenever expedience requires that someone be flattened, so as to advance the President’s usually trivial political goals

 

Count Ambassador Rice among these.

 

As near as we can figure out, the President recognized that the 11 September 2012 Benghazi (Libya) murders of:

 

Ambassador Christopher Stevens,

 

information officer Sean Smith,

 

and

 

former Navy SEALs, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty

 

would make him look bad during the 2012 presidential campaign.

 

Note

I wrote about the Benghazi terrorist episode here, here, and here.

 

Subsequently (during the final weeks of the 2012 presidential election), the Commander in Chief and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apparently tried to delay public awareness of this arguably inexcusable lapse in American embassy and consulate security.  They sent America’s United Nations Ambassador, Susan Rice, onto the Sunday talk shows to mischaracterize the diplomats’ deaths as predominantly due to mob, rather than terrorist actions.

 

Ambassador Rice loyally did so, being constrained both by behind-covering CIA reports and the President’s instructions.

 

I say “behind-covering” because the Benghazi consulate turns out to have been a primarily CIA run operation.  Lapses in security there almost certainly fell at the Agency’s door and, less directly, the President’s.

 

Republicans predictably took affront at the President’s obvious attempt to stall the truth from getting out.  But illogically, they attacked Ambassador Rice, rather than the President or his Secretary of State.

 

The only reason that I can come up with for Republican Senators’ irrational circumvention of the obvious chain of command in (and blame for) the Benghazi situation was the Senators’ not so suppressed bigotry.  From the perspective of political tactics, it was easier for the Senators to pounce on Ambassador Rice, than it was to take on the ever popular Hillary Clinton or her (and their) Commander in Chief.

 

 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s role in the Susan Rice mess

 

American consulates fall under the control of the Secretary of State, not the U.N. ambassador.

 

If security was lax at the Benghazi consulate, Secretary of State Clinton would (under ordinary circumstances) be to blame.

 

The fact that the Central Intelligence Agency was operating in or near the consulate may have muddied these waters.  But in no possible scenario could U.N. Ambassador Rice be credited with having had control over (or direct knowledge of) the Benghazi consulate’s security situation.

 

So, why did the Secretary of State foist the post-Benghazi talk show circuit off on Ambassador Rice?

 

We don’t know, but we can guess.  Hillary Clinton knew that she would either have to lie, or look incompetent, under the talk show hosts’ questioning.  It was easier to ask (or allow) the evidently eager, ambitious and apparently ever loyal Susan Rice throw herself under Fate’s Ax.

 

Secretary Clinton (probably indirectly) managed to dodge a probably fatal political bullet, by letting Ambassador Rice take it for her.

 

How admirable is that?

 

Especially when the disaster happened on your watch and under your command?

 

Only people who have served in deadly force uniforms, of one kind or another, can comprehend the revulsion that I feel for this kind of personal and professional dishonor.

 

 

The President’s conniving set the stage for all of this

 

When Susan Rice was rumored to be on the President’s short list of possible people to replace Secretary Clinton’s anticipated retirement, the news had to have come (directly or indirectly) from the Administration.  And the leak had to have been on purpose, given the fact that the President had trotted Ambassador Rice out to field the foreseeably difficult questions that came just after the Benghazi murders.

 

The President initially defended Ambassador Rice against the Republican Senators’ misbegotten attacks.

 

Yet yesterday, Ambassador Rice withdrew her name from the Secretary of State nomination process, without a protesting peep from the Commander in Chief.  She honestly told NBC News’ Brian Williams that she had wanted the job.  Which significantly supports the suspicion that the White House had nudged her into offering her withdrawal.

 

Today, Democrats would have us believe that, “It’s all them guys’ fault” — meaning the:

 

predominantly porky (relevant because of their generally uncaring perspectives on poverty)

rich

Republican white guy

anti-feminist

anti-black

Walking Brain-Dead —

with

a few token (also white) women thrown in — in the admittedly less over-fed forms of Senators Ayotte and Collins.

 

But the truth goes further than Democrats will admit.

 

President Obama’s arguably spineless attempt to evade taking responsibility for the Benghazi disaster set these events in motion.  He and Secretary Clinton’s substitution of Ambassador Rice in their place set the Ambassador up for the Republican Zombies to feast on.

 

Democratic moral culpability in the Rice Affair equals the Republicans’ unethical gutter dwelling.

 

Summing up, the President:

 

(i) sent Ambassador Rice out to take metaphorical mortar fire during the Benghazi cover-up

 

(ii) leaked her name as, perhaps, his first choice for Secretary of State

 

(iii) defended her, when it was politically convenient,

 

and

 

(iv) dumped her — when he might have had to work up a dribble of sweat to reward her loyalty and honorable service.

 

That’s the Obama Bus.

 

Do you wonder why some military people silently despise their Commander in Chief?

 

 

President Obama’s tactical political genius is not matched by an equivalent strategic competence

 

Tactically speaking, here is how the President gets away with his lack of down the command chain integrity:

 

First, being highly intelligent, he recognizes that Americans don’t remember “squat” for more than few seconds.  He will not pay a tangible price for so obviously mistreating his African-American female UN ambassador.  After all, “Ain’t I black, too?”

 

Second, he has to have noticed that not one bit of evidence submitted in the anti-Rice argument had anything at all to do with her credentials or her suitability for the Secretary of State position.  Nothing in the fracas had anything to with the substance of American foreign policy — where, had a discussion arisen, the President might have been vulnerable.

 

Third, President Obama knows that spending political capital on something genuinely important is significantly more challenging than supporting popularly held illusions. He knew that pushing the Rice nomination in the Senate was now going to be significantly more difficult than forcing a bogus (put popular) tax rate increase through Congress.

 

Let’s examine the tax rate ploy — it shows the President at his (unproductive) most talented

 

Related to the Susan Rice affair is the President’s vacuous posturing on raising tax rates on the rich.

 

These issues are connected because they arose at the same time.  The President probably believes that focusing on both would diminish his political ability to accomplish even one.

 

Let’s grant him that.  But, in sadly typical fashion, the President has (apparently) chosen the more expedient and meaningless of the two political avenues.

 

The following discussion has nuances that go beyond the obvious.

 

The first of these is that one can lead only insofar as other people can be persuaded or threatened to follow.

 

Distilled, this boils down to the “pecking order” rule of life — which is where President Obama has been vulnerable throughout his presidency.

 

To illustrate the premise, let’s break the President’s “Ambassador Rice versus Tax Rate Hike” dilemma into its two most essential underlying components:

 

(a) demonstrating real Alpha Person clout — via actually nominating Susan Rice in the face of irrational opposition

 

versus

 

(b) subtly demonstrating character weakness — by choosing the political expediency of pushing a popular (but meaningless) tax rate hike through Congress, instead.

 

 

Nuance One — the President misunderstood what was at stake when Republican Senators attacked Ambassador Rice

 

The President correctly understood that Republicans were indirectly mounting an assault on his and Secretary Clinton’s probably mistaken handling of the Benghazi consulate’s security.  But he missed the fact that they were challenging his “alpha male” ability to protect his Administrative “family” from cowardly assault.

 

When I wrote that —

 

The two Senators’ irrational attacks on Ambassador Rice are backing the President into a political corner.

 

He cannot very well substitute Senator Kerry for Ambassador Rice, without appearing to cave to the McCain-Graham bully team.

 

I mistakenly assumed that the Commander in Chief would recognize the ultimate peril of letting these Senators get away with gnawing at his Alpha Person credentials.

 

Displaying an astonishing lack of street smarts, the President has apparently chose to dump Ambassador Rice in order to accomplish the tax the rich prong of his agenda.  By doing this, he further diminished his Alpha Person credibility, the maintenance of which should have been the whole point to the exercise.

 

 

Explaining the “alpha male” element of this debacle — to those who do not immediately recognize it

 

People, who lack a dominance streak, generally miss (or deny) the critical nature of primal confrontations of this kind.

 

My political sense is that Republicans, more than Democrats, have a developed feel for the importance of elemental (cave person) primacy.  Elemental humans instinctively recognize raw power.  And are astonished by people who do not.

 

Naked reality is a poor place to wander, without recognizing one's position in the pecking order.

 

What Senators McCain and Graham did to the President, by so illogically attacking Ambassador Rice, was to challenge the President’s ability to protect his own Administrative family.

 

A genuine Alpha Person would have immediately squashed both upstarts for displaying such primal impertinence.  “I accept your challenge” — add a pointed insult — “and raise you three.”

 

Instead, the President capitulated to them (and to the flock of later arriving Republican coyotes) by accepting Susan Rice’s withdrawal from the nominating process.

 

His pusillanimity is inarguably revealed.

 

It is highly unlikely now that the President will recover enough Intimidation Factor to push anything meaningful through Republican Party opposition.  When “we” discover that our opponent lacks courage and will, we roll over him (and her) more easily.

 

Non-spiritual leaders who fail to recognize the primal basics of leadership are doomed to fail.

 

 

Nuance Two — the President’s strategically mistaken political judgment

 

One aspect of the President’s performance over the last essentially four years that has negatively impressed me is its emphasis on displaying short-term (Obama-centric) tactical competence over long-term (“the national good”) strategic sense.

 

Critical here is the Commander in Chief’s apparent inability to recognize that one’s ability to make one’s domestic political opponents “pay” for their shenanigans is a crucial aspect of leadership.

 

In the power sweepstakes, political popularity does not substitute well for the ability to project personal power behind the scenes.  Elite alphas would rather die than be exposed as weak.  This is because virtually everything that an elite Alpha Person accomplishes is due to his/her ability to project spine-filled resolve in challenging situations.

 

Senators McCain and Graham — rather incredibly, given the transparent illogic of their attack on Ambassador Rice — successfully exposed the President as weak.  And they have further exposed him as strategically mistaken in where his political priorities lie.

 

This is where the President’s mistaken emphasis on the tax side of the “Rice Nomination versus Tax Rate” trade comes in.

 

 

The President’s mistakenly chosen focus on the tax element

 

Is it worth ceding one’s Alpha-ness in order to achieve a lesser political goal?

 

No.

 

As I have indicated, Alpha People recognize that the ability to project personal power is the sole key to successfully achieving larger goals.  Ceding Alpha-ness, so as to achieve strategically lesser tactical goals is insane.

 

The President misunderstood the primal nature of his quarrel with Senators Lindsey and McCain.  He seems to have assumed that forcing his vacuous tax-the-rich rate on Congress will demonstrate his post-election power credentials.  But it will not.

 

In fact, trading the Rice nomination for concentrated emphasis on his tax rate hike argument clearly demonstrates the President’s Alpha-lacking character:

 

A tax rate hike will not cause rich people to pay more taxes — they will simply move their income into lower-taxed categories, which could (productively) have been eliminated with genuine tax reform.

 

Tactically astute Congressional Republicans already recognize that the rich will see their rates go up — consequently, the President is not illustrating persuasive forcefulness by pushing his unproductive platform plank.

 

The public already supports a rate hike, so the President is not demonstrating Alpha-based personal power — he is, instead, flying on other people’s wings.

 

An easily avoidable “rich guy” tax rate hike solves no deficit problems — and merely demonstrates (again) what a misfocused leader the President really is.

 

President Obama’s emphasis on getting a rate hike, in preference to “duking” it out over Ambassador Rice, thereby holding onto the primal element of personal power, is sad theater.  His choice accomplishes nothing, either in retaining Alpha Person clout or in solving our deficit problems.

 

Had the President been serious about proving the core essence of all non-spiritual leadership, namely Alpha "juice," he would have more courageously exposed Republican lunacy in attacking Ambassador Rice.  He would have rammed her nomination through the Senate by backing his adversaries into Bigotry Corner.  The idiocy of the Senators’ assault on Susan Rice contained within it the seeds of its own failure.

 

The President therefore lost on two counts.

 

He lost the musk of primal Alpha authority — which is frankly hard to do, while occupying the most powerful leadership position in the world.

 

And he revealed:

 

(a) expedient cowardice in initially hiding behind Ambassador Rice over Benghazi

 

and

 

(b) weak-headedness in subsequently not recognizing how to overcome the egregious intellectual and moral weaknesses of the Republican opposition to her nomination.

 

Strong Alphas do not visibly cave to opportunistic fools in spotlighted situations of essentially their own creation.

 

 

Whether Susan Rice was a suitable choice for Secretary of State is beside the point — given the way the President began the tumult

 

Ambassador Rice’s suitability for Secretary of State became irrelevant in this Alpha-testing battle, after the President:

 

(a) sent her out to take mortar fire on his behalf

 

and

 

(b) leaked her name as a possible successor to Secretary Clinton.

 

Those combined bits of ineptitude predictably put the President into an unnecessary confrontation that his Republican adversaries were able to exploit.

 

My guess is that the President correctly calculated that Ambassador Rice would become his political opponents' target.  But he overlooked what might also happen, after the Administration leaked her name as a possible nominee for Secretary of State.

 

The overall inanity of the President’s maneuvering is especially highlighted by the sheer (and cowardly) illogic of the Republican Senators’ assault on the Ambassador.

 

It is an inept and morally weak person, who successfully gets tumbled by inarguably rank stupidity on his challengers’ part.

 

A true Alpha Person would have guaranteed that his or her opponents bring their best game to the fracas.

 

 

The moral? — In American politics these days, integrity finishes poorly and scum rises

 

The Ambassador Rice episode symbolizes most American political leaders’ unwillingness to do anything that is necessary and hard.

 

“Unproductive, underhanded, and easy” seems to be our most consistently displayed mantra for political success.

 

I once knew more respectable times.